One Mile Sub­stan­dard hous­ing to go

Res­i­dents of an Abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­nity on the out­skirts of the Broome CBD that has been plagued with anti-so­cial be­hav­iour and vi­o­lence over the years have been re­lo­cated and the homes are to be de­mol­ished.

One Mile, on Old Broome Road, will be razed and the land will be vested with tra­di­tional own­ers, the Yawuru.

State Abo­rig­i­nal Af­fairs Minister Ben Wy­att said res­i­dents had moved from “ap­palling” con­di­tions to bet­ter hous­ing.

“Peo­ple have been liv­ing in ap­palling con­di­tions in these places for too many years,” he said

“Our Gov­ern­ment and our pre­de­ces­sor have been working with res­i­dents of these com­mu­ni­ties so there is agree­ment for them to move into bet­ter hous­ing in Broome.

“The ti­tle will be di­vested to Yawuru na­tive ti­tle hold­ers cor­po­ra­tion as part of the State Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to mod­ernise the Abo­rig­i­nal Lands Trust es­tate through­out Western Aus­tralia.”

Depart­ment of Com­mu­ni­ties com­mer­cial oper­a­tions as­sis­tant di­rec­tor Greg Cash said all ten­ants va­cated One Mile vol­un­tar­ily or “left of their own ac­cord”.

“Some ten­ants moved back to coun­try and some ten­ants moved to town un­der a spon­sored and sup­ported ten­ancy man­age­ment frame­work,” he said.

“This has oc­curred over an ex­ten­sive pe­riod, with the last ten­ant va­cat­ing in March.”

It is un­der­stood about 10 fam­i­lies lived at the town re­serve, but it at­tracted a num­ber of short-stay visi­tors from other com­mu­ni­ties who were in Broome, pri­mar­ily to at­tend work or funer­als.

Mr Cash said two dwellings and a shed re­mained on the land, which were emp­tied while the de­mo­li­tion ten­der was called.